


Face it Tiger, You Fucked Up

by SnackerVanAcker



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkward Romance, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Comfort Food, Divorce, Drinking & Talking, Drunken Flirting, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Roller Coaster, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Harry is a rich gay, M/M, Neighbors, Party, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker has ADHD, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Divorce, Precious Peter Parker, Romance, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Vanilla
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-12-26 01:27:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18272993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnackerVanAcker/pseuds/SnackerVanAcker
Summary: Peter shows up at MJ's doorstep with flowers and...no other plan, but how bad could it go?Part one in a 20k+ word self-contained fic with a good, meaty plot and lots of fun character stuff. Eventual graphic sex (it will be marked if that's not your thing.)This is a Post-Spider-Verse character exploration, sort of slice-of-life slow burn with MJ, with the rest of it being Peter trying to pick up the pieces and figure out where it all went wrong.





	1. Crocuses and Crosswords

**Author's Note:**

> My boss, a Brooklyn-based fiction writer (that's who "Cam Van Acker" is), did this "character exploration" some time in February after seeing Into The Spider-Verse. If he's cool with it I might upload screenshots of the email when I found out he was writing literal fanfiction without knowing it because it's cute as hell. But anyway, I liked it and asked if we could share it.
> 
> The idea is that this takes place directly after the movie with Peter showing up unnanounced on MJ's doorstep. There's some smuttiness later, but it'll be uploaded separately for those who want to avoid it. There are also some fun surprises I won't spoil, but promise it's a good time, especially for Peter B. lovers.

              Peter B. Parker owned only one two-piece suit.

              It was the one he’d signed the divorce papers in, the one he’d worn running late to his aunt’s funeral. But it was the only one he had, and even though it was an inch or so too short in all the limbs, it was better than the Spider-man getup.

              The jacket was constricting and looking at everything eye level gave him vertigo, made him feel small and antsy. But a precious cargo of discounted pink crocuses that were already wilting in the sun certainly wouldn’t have held up to web slinging.

              He’d kind of hoped pretending to be a normal well-adjusted dude would have made him feel like one. One shower, shave, real pants, and real shoes later, he _still_ felt like a fucking asshole in a mask. The tie hadn’t made the final cut and he hoped the loose top buttons of his shirt made him look like he’d come on the heels of some kind of important meeting. He shook down a leg of the suit that had ridden up a bit from the walk.

              Peter pulled himself up to the brownstone, tutting a beat. Shot a web at the doorbell. He breathed his weight into his chest as a final attempt to rein in the insecurities bouncing around in that overactive noggin.

              The only thing he had going for him, he thought, was that he didn’t breach any kind of boundary to get this address. He’d asked for it two Novembers ago with the promise of a holiday card. It wasn’t a lie, but the holiday came and went, and he couldn’t bring himself to call after yet another in a string of letdowns.

              If it’s space she wanted, she got it. Peter hadn’t bothered her at all. He was pretty convinced she couldn’t stand the sight of him, and to be honest, neither could he, but the slam dunk with Miles and saving the multiverse had buttered up his ego a little bit.

Mary Jane Watson opened the door and it was like he had breathed the life back into her. Those blue eyes lit up as soon as she fully comprehended who was standing at her door.

 

              MJ was gracious as always. No explanation yet from Peter’s end and she wasn’t pissed, didn’t assume he was stalking her, just opened right up and pulled him in like a puppy out of the hot sun. The two of them stepping into the immaculate, mid-century living room were the picture of reuniting divorcees.

              “Are those for me?” MJ smoothed her blouse as Peter awkwardly rolled his shoulders. The air was soft with recently ground coffee, lilies, and fresh laundry, and it smelled like home.

              The map of MJ’s freckles had Peter entranced and he had to snap himself out of staring. He played cool like the bouquet hadn’t been death-gripped in both hands the entire way there. “Oh yeah, I just you know. Picked ‘em up on the way. I think they’re mostly dead.”

              “They’re beautiful. Here, uh, let me get a vase.”

              Peter planted himself on the kelly green sofa and took a keen look around. The place was small and perfect, a sage green accent wall highlighting a TV at low volume and a healthy fern in the corner. The wooden slat shades let strips of light fall on the glass coffee table, immaculately polished aside from a nest of water rings and the New York Times, opened to the crossword, which was directly in front of the seat he’d chosen.

              He scooted to the other end of the sofa.

              “Do you want coffee?” She called from the kitchen, and Peter was in the middle of noticing how short the legs of his slacks were when he sat, so he didn’t think and replied “No, that’s okay.”

              She peeked out through the breakfast bar. Stunning. Her hair fell over one of her shoulders with her eyes fixed right on his, and the light glinted on the golden locket at her throat. “You sure?”

              “No, yeah, sorry, I meant—”

              “You _do_ want coffee.”

              He pointed. “Yeeeup. That one.”

              When she ducked back around to fill the French press, Peter straightened his gams and begged the pants down to his ankles so maybe it wouldn’t look like he got them at the Goodwill last year.

               MJ rounded the corner with a tray: the steeping joe, a pair of mismatched ceramic mugs, a tiny stack of cocktail napkins, and a sugar shaker that looked like it could have been swiped from a diner.

              “Wow,” he praised, his voice dry. She let out a bashful laugh. It wasn’t a grand display but it was picturesque the way she was navigating across the plush carpet to place it in the middle of the table.

              MJ took her spot on the sofa. A couple throw pillows separated her from Peter, and even though they weren’t necessarily in the way, she grabbed and tossed them onto the adjacent mid-century leather lounger.

              “Two minutes,” she remarked, and Pete’s heart sank. What the hell was he supposed to accomplish in two minutes?

              She must have seen his face fall because she gestured to the steeping press and elaborated “For coffee.”

              “Oh!” He scratched the side of his face, looking away. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

She let out a very weak, relieved laugh.

              The chatter of the reality show reruns murmured in the background. Peter’d had so many words when he ran into her mourning doppelganger in Miles’ world but felt himself weirdly silent now. The rise of panic made his hair stand on end. Word barf was coming. He crooked his hand over his mouth and drummed out “I know this is a long shot and I’m sorry to get in the middle of your day out of nowhere.”

              MJ was searching, her breath shallow and a million words at her throat. But she waited, hung onto the silence.

              Peter’s hand tugged along the sides off his mouth along his jaw, scrubbing down the five o’clock shadow. “Iiiii have not been there for you and I feel like I maybe—” he crossed his arms. “—left you when you needed it most, and that wasn’t very… _uff_ , I don’t know.”

              Peter hoped she would have interjected by now but felt like, yeah, he didn’t really deserve that kind of patience. He just furrowed his brow and stared at his knees.

              If this was a perfect moment, MJ would have touched his leg and said _Peter, I forgave you long ago_ , but a year or so is a long damn time to not call and she was too good to herself to be that generous.

              She let her gaze drop to the floor for a second before going back up to him. “It’s good to see you.”

              Peter stayed looking at the ground. Like usual he’d jumped right in without a solid plan and had hoped things would just fall into place. It doesn’t always work.

              A timer went off in the kitchen and they both flinched. He was getting hot and shrugged off his blazer. “I’ll get it.”

              Peter hung his coat over the arm of the sofa and reached over to press down the grounds. It sent the smell right into the air and both MJ and Peter filled their lungs with it. It was like a salve.

              Without thinking, Peter reached for the sugar and noticed it had caked over. Gave it a few good whacks and put a lump’s worth in each mug. His hands were trembling. He wondered briefly how it’d go if he just dumped it all on the rug.

              As Peter filled the mugs with fresh joe, MJ sniffed and pushed her hair to the side. Peter glanced and admired the shadow in her collarbone. She cleared her throat. “Have you been busy?”

              “Oh yeah,” he lied, badly, through the side of his mouth. “Yesterday I saved the multiverse.”

              With her fingers curling around the hot mug, MJ let out a single disbelieving laugh. “Wait—what?”

              “Some Kingpin in a parallel universe made a huge collider,” he explained flatly and sipped. Oh, MJ’s coffee was so good. She’d always been the one to stock the cabinet with fancy roasts from all over the world. “Teamed up with some other Spider-people to destroy it, don’t know if that worked, but, uh.” His chest tightened at the question if Miles made it out after all.

              MJ stared like she didn’t quite believe him. “…That sounds _very_ busy.”

              Peter breathed into the cup, eyes wet. Push it away, push it away. “I just didn’t want to waste any more time, you know.”

              “You don’t have to stay long if you don’t want.”

              Peter set the mug down at turned to her. “No no no, that’s not what I meant. That’s _why_ I’m here.”

              MJ tried to smile, but that self-doubt of coming second to his work had rushed back as a lump in her throat. God, he hated seeing her sad.

              “I’m not here for any specific reason, just…here, if you want to…” he…smiled? “Need to talk about anything?” And as soon as he said it he wished something more substantial had come out.

              MJ laughed dryly and shook her head as she took another sip.

              “Not like right now. God _damn it_.” Peter chewed at a finger nail, then pointed to the door. “Can I just leave and come back and try again?”

              With a knowing smile, MJ teased “That’s not what this is?”

              Peter glowered at the ceiling.

              “I know this was hard for you to do, but, um.” She set the cup in her lap, genuine. “I’m really glad you’re here. I…miss you, just…being around,” she said with a shrug.

              It felt too generous and Peter ruminated angrily to himself as MJ’s phone buzzed on the coffee table. She picked it up to check the text, and the quickness with which she began gathering items back to the tray made it seem like something had come up. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

              Peter watched her, eyes darting as her attention slipped through his fingers. “You gotta go somewhere?”

              “Yeah, I’m sorry.” She stood up to lift the tray. “I have to meet my professor, he has some notes for this paper I’m writing. I didn’t think he was going to be ready ‘til later.”

              As she headed back to the kitchen, Peter stood and grabbed his coat. “Oh, you went back to school. That’s…that’s great.”

              She hummed affirmatively, and after placing the dishes at the sink, she made her way across the room to the door with Peter’s eyes on her the whole time. “Yeah, I’m going for that doctorate. Nothing else to do.”

              With the coat draped over his arm, Peter waited at the open doorway. “Wow. That’s awesome. How is it?”

              MJ smiled, her eyes darting outside. “I have to go, Peter. I’m sorry.”

              “Okay, that’s fine,” he assured, stepping backwards out. “Empire State? I heard that’s a good school. I probably should have gone, but the, you know, Spider…stuff.” His breath caught in his throat as he noticed her eyeing him with that wry grin, the one she’d flash when he was talking too much. He stuffed a hand around the inside of his waistband to make sure his shirt was tucked back in. “I’ll call you.”

              “Please do,” she said sweetly, and with a pause, leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. “Goodbye, Peter.”

 

 

 

 

 

              The subway ride home was really just Peter staring into space as he tried to comprehend what just happened. Was that a slam dunk? Was MJ just being nice? _Both_? Neither?

He fast-walked up the stairs to the street, hands in his pockets, glaring at the ground. Anything to get him out of her house, or enough comfort and trust to send him out without coddling his feelings? The sky rumbled and began sprinkling.

Peter tapped his foot on the sidewalk as he waited in the throng for the walk signal. Kiss on the cheek. Kiss on the cheek. Kiss on the _cheek_? He scratched at the side she’d graced with her lips.

              Kiss on the cheek. He slipped out of the rain through the broken back door of the apartment complex and stomped quick up the stairs. He had a whole seven stories to keep orbiting around what that could mean and whether it was a form of consolation, or a message that things were for sure over. Or both. Or neither.

              Busting through to his floor, Peter marched through the hallway and muttered. Not mad, just wholly and fully fixated. She’d had five minutes before having to leave for her appointment and had allowed him to fill it, no questions, no preface, had even made him coffee, had put away the crossword. But he’d come second. And wow, he remembered all the times he’d cut arguments and tender moments short to go beat up a carjacker or stop a robbery. Yeah. It hurt.

              Peter was too focused to realize there was another body occupying the narrow hall and, with a startled gasp, froze a half-inch short of plowing right into it.

              The other figure flinched. It was a friend of Peter’s neighbor–maybe a boyfriend--he’d seen him around often. The kid was probably in his early twenties, petite, with an asymmetrical short black haircut that was expertly styled at every moment and every angle; always wearing teal scrubs and with a black duffel over his shoulder.

              Nurse Boy glared at Peter beneath giant orange-tinted aviators. He was breathing hard in his chest. Probably wasn’t used to men twice his height stopping short of jumping him in the hall. “Can I _help_ you?”

              Peter broke eye contact towards his door at the end of the hall, just on the other side of the Nurse Boy, and didn’t see a way around him. “That’s my door,” he said blankly.

              “Oh…kay.” The kid pressed himself against the door to let Peter by, and as he watched Peter fumble for his keys, the neighbor opened up. She saw Peter and immediately yanked her boyfriend inside, murmuring sharply about this weird sad guy they shared a wall with.

 

When Peter got in, he was starving and craving human touch. He immediately stripped down to his boxers, webbed and yanked open the fridge, and pawed through it for leftovers–fuck yes, half a banh mi–and stuffed it in his mouth as he collapsed into the mattress on the floor. He switched on the news and watched rain patter against the glass of his single window, dappling black and blue on his bare chest.

He whined with his mouth full of French bread and scrunched the hair on the top of his head. Man, he needed a haircut, but who has time for that?

All things considered, he hadn’t done too bad. MJ didn’t cuss him out. And thank god she didn’t _cry_. He’d have been destroyed. The fantasy alone, of her sobbing there on the couch into a wad of cocktail napkins, _Peter you left me_ , made his stomach turn fully in on itself and he had to whack at the brick wall above his head to get the thought out of his brain.

After a moment he heard through the wall, muffled, ”Shut the _FUCK UP._ ”

Peter rolled his eyes and stuffed the rest of the sandwich in his mouth. Not like he ever complained about their four a.m. ragers.

After wiping his hands on the blanket, Peter reached over to plug in his phone. Lately the thing’d had a hard time keeping a charge. And he’d need it for whatever filth he was gonna look up to make it easier to jerk off.


	2. Dogs and Autopilot

Somehow, Peter slept until about six a.m. and woke up to birds chirping outside his window.

When you’re not on a regular schedule it’s the _worst_ thing to wake up to. It’s a sign that either you slept in or got up way too early. For Pete, it was just the knowledge that he was unconscious for more than an hour at a time and could have missed something, anything. He scrubbed wet sleep from his eyes with one hand and fumbled for the TV remote.

The news looked pretty quiet, something about an energy tech breakthrough at Oscorp, so he muted it and grabbed the laptop from off the floor beside him.

The secondhand Alienware’s HDD chugged as it willed itself to life. “Stay with me, bud.” He swiped some crumbs off the keys.

While the laptop pieced together its bootlegged OS, Peter unplugged his phone and scrolled through the dozens of messages he hadn’t read yet. Nothing from MJ—she was probably asleep. Three days ago, Harry sent him an article about gene therapy on macular degeneration that he hadn’t read yet. As he opened up the message and started typing, an ellipsis appeared on Harry’s end, indicating he was typing a message.

Peter stopped. Eventually the chat slid up to reveal “morning pete, can we do lunch today”

Peter gulped. His fingers fumbled over the keyboard to respond with “Sure, where?” Before tossing the phone back onto his pillow. Now wasn’t the time to get freaked out over the possibility that MJ and Harry were still close and that she probably, most definitely, called him after Peter left to dish a little. Whatever she could, anyway—Peter’d managed a full five minutes of nothing before getting kicked out.

During off hours, Peter did data entry for a huge employment agency remotely from his apartment. Well…he _kind of_ did data entry. He’d popped a goober in an Oscorp server block and designed a program to do it for him while he was away, which was kind of like working, because he still had to pull up a virtual machine and tweak any stuff the OCR garbled or couldn’t pick up. It was all very hush hush and probably a little illegal, but it just barely paid the bills and required very little attention. Plus, Harry hadn’t seemed to have caught on yet, so it must not have been a _huge_ issue.

Peter made up for any guilt by being very meticulous about the security in and out of the cloud. It was Harry’s, after all. He also sometimes would amend the resumes the got in if they were particularly self-deprecating. One time an elderly applicant somehow made “30 years of non-profit experience in the southeast US” sound underwhelming. Sometimes he soothed himself to sleep in the afternoon with the fantasy that his slight verbiage adjustments got them a glamorous, well-paying job that valued their contributions. Someone deserved it.

There were a few errors, so Peter patched them up and killed it for the day. That was the only weird thing about making a bot do your work: you couldn’t let it do too much, or your boss might find out. Peter didn’t personally see how this was an issue, but he didn’t want to take any more chances with being exceptional. It didn’t always work out in his favor.

He reached back to his phone to check the time. When he did, his stomach growled and just about turned inside out on itself. He doubled over in frustration. Feeding a body full of mutated, rapidly-replicating cells was a chore, and it felt like the older he got, the more upkeep it took.

Despite emptying the fridge just the night before, Peter felt compelled to open it _again_ and came face to face with a Fight-Club-esque cold box full of mustard and expired horseradish cream. The pantry wasn’t in any better shape, dry rice and beans and a beat-up can of pureed pumpkin that had to be at least a year expired. In times like this he used to just drop by Aunt May’s and raid the kitchen, and now that she was gone, he found himself missing her lovingly derisive comments about his appetite.

A few knocks hit the front door and his blood pressure hit the damn roof. He scrambled to the door to check through the peephole. It was the neighbor’s nurse boyfriend, exhausted and impatient with a duffel bag over one arm and a box under the other, crammed into Peter’s end of the hall.

With his lips to the door, Peter barked “One sec!” and scrambled to find real pants. He settled for a pair of heather gray joggers with Mysterious Stains©. Hopping one leg through, he tripped on himself and hit the floor like a ton of bricks.

It didn’t keep him down for long though, and in no time, he’d forced the other leg through, scrabbled up, undid the million locks and yanked the door open. “Nice night we’re having,” he jabbed breathlessly, smooth as a hunk of gravel.

Peter was definitely in the kid’s personal space, but Nurse Boy didn’t move, and barked out an awkward laugh. “What?”

“Uh, nothing. Never mind.” Strike one on being cute. The line didn’t work so well at sunrise.

“Are you Peter B. Parker?”

 The kid’s voice was sharp and light, almost sprightly, and through a fog of exhaustion he was still just obnoxiously pretty. Pete wondered what he’d look like curled up for a nap at the end of his mattress. Hell, he could probably tuck himself into a ball on the couch, or in someone’s pocket, the tiny, bleary-eyed son of a bitch.

Peter folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the jamb. “Yeah? Who’s asking?” He said with that typical New Yorker sheet of thorns.

Nurse Boy handed over the package. “Sorry. I just think this was left at the wrong unit.” He jabbed with a thumb to his right, the door Peter usually saw him at during the wee hours of the morning. “I found it on my friend’s counter. I don’t think they even read the address.”

Peter was picking up an accent, kind of. But only on some of the consonants. French? He snapped out of it for a second and accepted the package. What had needed an entire arm of Nurse Boy fit in the palm of one of his hands. “Yeah, cool cool cool, no problem.” He felt hot in the pit of his stomach. Nerves that weren’t usually there.

Peter felt the stranger’s gaze was digging around in his brain. Was there that much of an age difference that Peter could realistically imagine him derisively calling him grandpa?

“Anyway, sorry.” Nurse Boy swung the duffel bag to his other shoulder. “I didn’t mean to bug you. Have a nice day.” And turned to walk off.

Pete leaned out. “Wait. What’s your name?”

Nurse Boy turned, only about eight feet down the hall at this point. “Sorry?”

“I’m Peter. Sorry. I, uh—” he waved around and cleared his throat—“I see you around here, sometimes, visiting your girlfriend or whatever? Which is…a totally normal thing for me to notice, by the way, in case you were wondering.”

“Oh, ha. _Not_ my girlfriend.” The reply was barbed and full of baggage.

Peter winced, feeling like an old tool. “Sorry. I don’t know why I assumed. Not like it’s the 21st fuckin’…century.”

“It’s okay. They’re a friend.”

“Well, uh, I work weird hours too.” He gestured to the kid’s scrubs, but really it just looked like he was gesturing to all of him. “Let me know if you ever need anything.”

It was a sweet gesture, but coming from the shirtless, unshaven forty-year-old in Mysterious Stain© sweatpants leaning against the doorframe of what could have been a decent apartment if he took care of it, it maybe came off as a little too familiar.

Nurse boy kind of scoffed and said “Yeah. Sure.”

Fucking stung, but what else did he expect?

 

 

Peter would have thought to ask about the package earlier, but honestly, he didn’t remember ordering anything. The luxury of spontaneous online shopping wasn’t something immediately in his grasp. He squinted to read the return address. Some distribution center in China. Promising.

The box was kinda beat up and fully wrapped in packing tape, so he dug around a kitchen drawer for a paring knife and split the box open at the top seam.

Oh, _yeah,_ now he remembered. Two months ago he got sad merlot drunk, cried in his shower, looked at adoptable dogs online, then ordered a black nylon leash and collar off some bootleg discount shopping app.

He sighed and hung them up on the hooks by his front door. Maybe another day.

 

 

Harry, good ol’ Harry, had fully anticipated waiting for Peter. As such, he hadn’t ordered lunch yet, but had posted up at a table with two cups of coffee (Pete never minded if his got cold) and a science journal pulled up on his phone. He was scrolling through ads when a big fist knocked twice on the table and Pete said “Hey, buddy.”

Peter slid into the seat opposite his old friend, denying any breathing room for a proper greeting or a hug, and immediately quaffed down the coffee. Harry put down his phone and examined Peter with narrow eyes.

With his cheeks full of coffee, Peter stared back, then swallowed, and jabbed “What?”

Harry had always been put together but looked like he’d definitely been in the office this afternoon. A caramel-skinned, stocky boy, Harry took after his father in stature and his mother in demeanor, being stern and familiar and very particular about his appearance.

It was good Harry wasn’t more like his dad. For one reason, really – Norman had been intimidating, scalding, two-faced, intense, so much so that it cost him his life in a botched lab experiment two decades earlier. Harry was less ambitious, if not superficial, and enjoyed the fruits of his father’s labor by investing in public funds and the black wool coat he was presently swatting deli crumbs off of.

Harry was also just gorgeous, with doe-brown eyes and sharp bones and a kind of effortless grace that made Peter self-conscious of his own clumsiness. It took Peter far too long to realize that his original career track in tech was at least partially inspired by the fluttering, breathless desire to be around Harry at all times. And although academics never quite agreed with him, Peter would find himself being doted on at frat parties until Harry graduated with honors and took on the Oscorp mantle. Things kind of fell apart after that. They both were busy.

Harry was smiling impishly like he knew what was up. “How’d your visit go with MJ, bro?”

“Wow,” Peter scoffed, “Literally none of your business, ‘ _buh-ro_.’”

Unbuttoning his coat, Harry pushed. “Be honest with me for a second. Do—”

“For starters, this coffee? Suuuucks.”

Harry huffed and drummed his knuckles on the Formica. The deli clerk was shooting him mean glances, probably because folks were lined up and searching for tables, and so far, the Oscorp head had busied an entire booth with nothing but two cups of black drip coffee.

Sure, Harry was being pushy and snobby, but Peter totally deserved the attitude and was getting a kick out of giving him a hard time. It’s not like he’d run into the MJ visit with any sort of plan or idea. It was perfectly his style, and even though he and Harry hadn’t been around each other for awhile, this felt strangely like the same talk he’d gotten from Harry when he proposed to MJ in the first place.

Gosh, had Harry known this whole time it was going to fall apart? Peter slurped down to the dregs, craving a buzz. No way. Peter and MJ were the kind of pair that orbited each other and something had just knocked them out of sync. Harry just liked being nosy.

Harry’s phone rang, and after glancing at it, he silenced it and slipped it back into his coat pocket before turning back to his opposite. “Sorry, still in boss mode.” A sigh. “I had to fire some people today and it’s hard to turn that part of my brain off.”

Peter murmured “Whatever” and reached across the table to steal Harry’s cup.

As Harry rubbed at his neck and watched the throng of deli patrons squeeze past one another, he looked kind of…sad, and Peter watched him, stopping mid-gulp to set the cup back down and slide it back to him. “…Sorry.” He sat back and folded his arms, looking to the side. “I’m, uh, I’m being a dick.”

Harry laughed softly without looking at him. “Yeah, me too.”

The two, just taking in the white noise around them, might have noticed out of their peripherals that the other was smiling.

Peter lobbed up a conversation starter. Nothing spectacular, but it was better than nothing. “How’s stuff at Oscorp?”

“Good,” Harry replied with a stretch. “Busy. We could use an extra hand, actually.”

Harry had been offering Peter jobs for years. It was the one constant as they drifted in and out of friendship. It might have just been a gesture more than anything, but Peter had never been great at the nine to five. Without Aunt May physically dragging him out of bed every morning he probably wouldn’t have even graduated high school. He’d survived a brief stint near the end of he and MJ’s marriage, at her suggestion, but the fallout there made it impossible to look anyone in the eye and pretend things were cool.

A therapist would have had a great time with him. Harry had offered that in the past too, posturing the company’s very generous insurance plan that included mental healthcare.

Peter acknowledged the comment but said nothing substantial in return, so Harry cleared his throat and offered up “How about you?”

Ugh, how could he answer that? Besides Spider-Man, he had, what, creeping out the neighbor’s friend and leeching off the Oscorp cloud? “I’m…thinking about getting a dog,” He said with a shrug.

Harry covered his face and bust up laughing.

“ _What_?” Peter hissed.

“Pete, _dude_.” Harry watched as Peter shook his head accusingly. “I don’t know, man. Maybe you ought to figure out how to take care of yourself first.”

Peter knocked on the table and stood up. “Thanks for your opinion, Osborn, I’ll put it in the letters section,” he snapped, and it cut deep. As he walked past, Harry grabbed the sleeve of his coat.

If he wanted to, Peter could have tugged his arm away in a snap. But he didn’t. He also didn’t entertain Harry’s attempt for eye contact.

“Not letting you off that easy, Pete.”

Harry smacked the dude’s ribs playfully with the back of his hand. “There’s a gala tonight. It’s gonna be super boring. If you’re still running that data entry gig off Oscorp’s farm, put that on autopilot and come be my plus one?”

Peter’s heart skipped a beat. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

Harry stood up and patted Pete’s paunch. “Let me buy you a sandwich. Looks like you could use it.”


	3. Bifolds and Bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter somehow accidentally runs into MJ at an Oscorp gala.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cameron Van Acker is a professional writer living in Brooklyn, NY. These works are published on his behalf, with permission, by a member of his office staff. Comments, messages, and questions will be shared with him at his assistant's discretion.

The gala was being held at the Cotte Palace hotel in Manhattan, and they were late, because Harry insisted on getting Peter a decent cotton blend shirt. As they pulled up in Harry’s limo, Peter turned away from his companion’s emphatic speech on graphene stacking to get a handle on his surroundings.  

Dozens of banners preached Oscorp’s sponsorship of the event. Black tie, lots of formal security hovering around the doors and windows, guests complying politely with invasive scans and bag checks—that wasn’t typical for the upper crust.

Harry hadn’t at all veered into the subject of the gala, but as the car pulled up and the two stepped out to the onslaught of paparazzi flashes, Peter started to get the sense it was more important than he had anticipated.

Peter, trying to curb a panic, brought an arm up to shield his face. He hoped it would just look like he was guarding from the flashes, but part of being allowed to be Peter Parker _and_ Spider-Man was that Peter needed to stay indistinguishable from every other John Doe. Ending up in the papers with the Northeast’s most eligible bachelor could make that a little bit harder.

He felt Harry’s fingers lace into his elbow to ease it down. Allowing Harry to take his arm, Peter grumbled out of the side of his mouth “ _Heyyy_ Oz, I’m all for freedom of the press, but maybe a warning next time so I can look a little less like you found me at the pound?”

Harry guided him effortlessly through the swath. “You look great,” He said earnestly. By the time they were led through the door, foregoing security, Peter was blushing bright red and tugging at his tie.

The soundtrack of Manhattan dulled into the patter of polite conversation amidst a string quartet. The Cotte’s lobby, intimate and adorned, looked like it could have been someone’s house, with symmetrical carpeted staircases flanking the marbled room to a balcony up above, and a modest crystal chandelier dangling like a brooch in the center. Mahogany-framed expressionist paintings, marked with their titles and artists, lined the walls between paned windows and floor-to-ceiling velvet drapes – and amidst it all, about a hundred guests chatted, mostly on the upper floor, sipping champagne and making intense eye contact with one another.

An older lady who’d turned from a conversation came to greet Harry with a _faire la bise_ and pleasant questions before drifting away. Peter wasn’t paying attention – he was trying to burn through his embarrassment, and it still felt like everyone was staring at him.

As the lady left, Harry looked like he was about to say something, but a trio of guys around his age flagged him down by the elevator; so he dropped a hand on Peter’s shoulder and told him he’d be right back. “Try to enjoy yourself,” he urged, before abandoning his guest amidst the gaggles of highly decorated Oscorp partners and their guests.

Peter craned towards a nearby server and popped a couple spanakopita cups, grumbling “ _Yeah sure_ ” with his mouth full.

With guests pouring in through the door, Peter strung himself along the sides of the room, sighing into the hors d’oeuvres. Tangy, flaky, crispy, still warm, that gooey, milky fresh ricotta and feta, bitter and fragrant olive oil—the food was _the_ good thing about fancy parties. New solution to Harry’s command of “try to enjoy yourself:” eat everything. Another server came by with a glass of wine, which was the icing on the cake.

A hand gingerly touched the small of his back. Caught in his conquest of thirst-quenching, Peter flinched and splashed a glob of the narrow glass’s contents onto his front.

He spun to face his _attacker_ and about choked on his mouthful.

MJ put her fingers to her mouth. “Oh my god—” She floundered. “I’m so sorry, Peter, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

MJ was rattling apologies and explanations but Peter’s brain was throbbing and spinning with the vision of her. She was in dusty purple, her hair up and tousled. The front of her dress plunged to expose the dusting of freckles on her breastbone and it took every brain cell to not stare.

He _was_ staring, though. His eyes shot back up to hers, hopefully before she noticed.

He got halfway through “Wow—" before realizing he’d never swallowed the savory pastry that’d moistened into a mess in his cheek. He gulped it back as he let his gaze drop to his own shirt. Why’d he have to be sticky and smelling like wine _now_?

“Wow, did not expect to see you here!” Peter barked with a laugh to smooth it over. “Even though I have _literally_ no idea why I’m here or what this whole thing is.”

MJ cocked her head, failing to coordinate a response to that.

“Harry invited me,” he clarified. Too bad the wine glass was half empty now, he needed it real bad.

She chuckled awkwardly. “Oh, I mean, yeah, I figured.”

There was a silence, and Peter was smacked with the realization that MJ had been part of a group, and the three of them were staring at him with identical questioning glances.

“Peter B. Parker.” He dove right in with a handshake, and the elderly gentleman to MJ’s right was the first and only to accept.

MJ cleared her throat. “Um, this is Doctor Gorman, he’s the new head of socio-cultural anthropology at Empire State. And Doctors Stork and Mendelsohn, two of my professors.” Peter rounded out the introduction with two more greasy handshakes as MJ continued. “This is Peter, he’s my, um.”

Her eyes flicked to meet his as she drew in a breath. Shit. Please don’t say ex-husband.

“Peter is an engineer at Oscorp.”

“No, ha, not anymore, actually,” Peter said with a big swig off the glass.

 “Oh,” MJ said under her breath. “That’s…new.” Peter pretended like he didn’t hear her and splashed what was left into the back of this throat.

Dr. Gorman, a Monopoly-man sort of figure, smiled brightly under a snow-white mustache. “An engineer, that’s just brilliant. What kind is that? I speak on technology quite often in my lectures.”

As Pete handed the glass to a passing server, he pictured Dr. Gorman, with that bombastic English accent, chopping through forests of bamboo with a machete and a team of khaki-clad explorers in tow.

And he continued spacing as the professor prattled on, speaking of how things like the internet have emblazoned collaboration between researchers of different specialties— _god, MJ had two new freckles on her chest_ —and even that developments in highly futuristic movements like transhumanism— _her hair, nose-level to Peter, smelled like coconut, like real coconut, not the saccharine manufactured stuff_ —can be traced back to similar grasps at human immortality not just thousands, but even millions of years back in human history.

MJ nudged Peter gently in the ribs and he blasted back to the real world with a clumsy clearing of his throat.

“As a man of science, you’re sure to find exceptional interest in the evening’s guest of honor, isn’t that right?” Gorman finalized.

Peter shook his head. “And what’s that?”

MJ cut in incredulously with “The…hydrogen crystals?”

Hydrogen crystals. Peter scanned the room, his heart was racing. He was embarrassing MJ in front of her mentors with little hope of recovering it. “…Sure,” he replied, too late, and the group had gone quiet again, as if Peter had been expected to lead a waltz and has stepped on his partner’s foot for the third time.

He rocked the knot of his tie a little lower and undid the top button of his shirt. Think of an excuse, Peter. He pointed up the stairs and clicked his tongue, as if to say something soon, but the quadruplet of intellectuals glaring at him made it hard to think of anything clever.

“I’m gonna get blasted,” he said to no one in particular, and squeezed away, feeling MJ’s flummoxed gaze drilling into the back of his head.

Even though booze was on the agenda, the ultimate goal was _run_. How could he have so royally screwed that up? Did Harry orchestrate it all, just to embarrass him? Peter pushed by to get onto the staircase, where he could finally breathe, and looked down to see MJ gesturing and smiling anxiously to her mentors. Probably trying to explain him away.

He sighed in defeat and kept stiffly up the stairs, muttering insults to himself. Stupid, clumsy, while MJ was effortless and graceful, as always. Where was Harry? Hydrogen crystals – like an electrical conductor? That wasn’t new technology, and definitely didn’t warrant a party with _Dom_ _Perignon_ floating around on silver platters.

The balcony landing was practically guarded with bodies, the crowd upstairs was so thick. The bar must have been very close. He wedged in sideways to cut through. The deeper he got in the thick of it, the more glasses of bourbon and gin he spotted – definitely heading in the right direction.

              Peter’s spider-sense spiked and before he could realize it, his grip had fully clamped down on a small wrist in his back pocket. The owner yelped in pain.

              Seriously, out of all the people here, _he_ was the one getting pickpocketed?  

              Peter yanked the wrist across his chest and a delicate torso pressed against his stomach. They locked eyes.

              “Peter B. Parker,” Nurse Boy breathed. “I was just trying to get by.”

              No, no, he was _not_ , and the flatness of Peter’s expression said he knew better. He cocked an eyebrow. “Something tells me you’re not an Oscorp benefactor.” He eyed a skin-tight black sleeve peeking out from under the kid’s loose-fitting server getup. “Or a waiter?”

              “What do you bench?” The younger one laughed nervously, glancing at Peter’s tightened bicep.

              He plucked his wallet out of the kid’s fingers and released him with “ _Yeah_ , I’ll take that.”

Nurse Boy tried to put distance between them as he petted his wrist, but there were too many bodies. “Shit, I think it’s gonna bruise.”

              Peter’d be cool giving him a couple more of those, if he was being honest. He pocketed the leather bifold and kept his hand around it, just in case, picking at the monogrammed _BP_ that had almost completely worn away. “Do I get your name now, since you tried to rob me?”

              “It’s not technically robbing. Plus I’m the only one that got hurt.”

              Kid was almost as good as deflecting as he was. Peter shook gently with a chuckle.

              “Felix. Don’t tell anyone?”

              “That your name is Felix or that you tried to swipe my Jimmy Johns punch card?”

              “Both?”

              They shared a genuine smile before Peter heard his name. A full head over most of the crowd, he caught Harry waving and wedging his way towards him, a pair of full highballs perched to safety.

He felt the small form slip across his and dissipate into a sea of warm, drunken bodies.

             

              Midnight hit a little later and the place had thinned out aside from the rowdy folks. Although Harry seemed to be on a perpetual second wind since arriving, Peter was riding that miserable mashup of exhaustion and hyper-awareness. His eyes kept darting around for MJ and his spidey-sense kept shooting up at the stupidest things. At some point he just said “fuck all” to the unexplainable, impending sense of doom and recruited Harry to take shots with him.

              Peter did two for every Harry’s one, which might as well have seduced the CEO for the way he was ogling and languishing on the bar.

              MJ was nowhere to be found the entire night. As Peter headed out the Cotte Palace door, trying to keep Harry aloft, he did one last scan for the violet-cloaked redhead—and sighed in defeat.


End file.
